Making Of Nissan’s "With Dad" Super Bowl Ad: Video

Nissan tugged at the heart strings of many Super Bowl XLIX viewers with its “With Dad” commercial that proved to be the simultaneous global debut of two completely different cars: the GT-R LM NISMO racecar and the 2016 Nissan Maxima sedan. Now with both cars ready to make their live action debuts – Maxima at New York Auto Show next month and GT-R LM NISMO at Le Mans in June – Nissan has released a new video that reveals how the emotional advertisement was created.

The commercial was shot at the Circuit of the Americas (CotA) while Nissan was testing its LMP1 racecar, which created a unique challenge in that the filming took the racecar away from engineers who were getting the car ready for Le Mans. One example given by Ben Bowlby, Nissan’s LMP1 technical director, is that the team was unexpectedly forced to finish wrapping the car’s body for filming rather than fitting the car with an energy recovery system for the hybrid drive.

Perhaps the best part of this video is a behind-the-scenes look at how the commercial’s intense crash scene was created, but there are also a couple Easter Eggs within the video like seeing the Nissan GT-R as the World’s most awesome camera car and getting a sneak peek at the GT-R LM NISMO’s front brakes.

Check out the seven-minute video that shows just some of what it took to create the 90-second finished product, which is posted below.

Press Release

Nissan scored big on Super Bowl Sunday in January with a dramatic 90-second commercial titled "With Dad." The commercial combined a touching storyline with the debut of future Nissan race and production vehicles.

The story, which follows an up-and-coming race driver through his journey to the highest levels of motorsports competition, uses a narrative soundtrack provided by Harry Chapin’s iconic "Cat’s In the Cradle." It depicts the struggles of a father and mother to balance work and family while they raise their son. In the end, the cycle, so well known in Chapin’s song, is broken.

In February, Google announced that Nissan North America’s “With Dad” Super Bowl XLIX commercial has beat out all competition to win this year’s YouTube AdBlitz™. “With Dad” was voted by fans as their Favorite Super Bowl Commercial of 2015. With nearly 40 percent more total votes cast this year than last, this year’s fan favorite received 60 percent more votes than last year’s top pick.

In this exclusive video, we take a behind-the-scenes look at how the ad was filmed. See the story boards, listen to interviews with the crew, and more.